This invention comprises an improvement over the principles described and claimed in prior U.S. Pat. No. 2,864,216 in the name of Long et al and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. While the machine set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 2,864,216 has proven to be remarkably troublefree and fully capable of carrying out its intended function, nonetheless, it is not entirely automated and requires several operators to bunch the long initial lengths of sausages together and properly load such bunches into the machine for subsequent processing thereby. Moreover, by using manual labor in this way, the prior operation was subject to certain inaccuracies in ultimate sausage lengths and excesses in trimmed waste as a result of the inherent degree of imprecision which accompanies manual involvement in processing operations.